Tuesday 25 August 2009

Derren Brown Being Backwards!

WELL! What a treat I have today (imagine me saying that in a really, really modest voice). For those of you who haven't seen, there's an intriguing new advert on C4 regarding Derren Brown's new series "The Events". Sounds ominous........ *spooky noises*
The advert is intriguing mostly because it's backwards.... kinda... here it is anyway:


Ok- Obviously some enterprising little soul has already reversed this the other way so we can hear what he's saying. We'll get to that. What I have done though, is screenshotted as many visual clues in the advert as I could. Aren't I nice? I haven't been anal and produced exact times for every scene but if you have at least as many brain cells as fingers, you'll probably be able to spot them.

Without further adoing:

Right at the beginning (end??) of the clip, a truck reverses away from our venerable host... which means in the other direction of play he gets hit by a truck. Huh. Take what meaning you wish from that. What's interesting is "Red & Black" written on the front of it as it hits (reverses from) him. I'm thinking, Roulette predictions? Sounds a bit dull... other ideas?


Next up we have, apart from a few people in the background (including this newspaper reader), an advert for a pizza website. This site exists, but the pizza delivery doesn't. It just links you back to Derren's homepage. Sooo.... could he have some mentalism effect wherein he forces people to become stuck to their settees? Perhaps. Also on the site, we see date 1986, and this "Dr. Rene Marrone" name (Dr. Rene is an anagram of Derren, and "Marrone" is italian for "Brown").

There's a lot going on in the background including a workman and a couple of suits milling back and forth (forth and back?). The numbers on the lampost look like a lottery draw... I can see the "2" at the end of a two digit number, then "25", "0" (again off a two digit number), "6" and "47". Look further down for more lottery signs. I think there's a possibility that these change depending on the advert. The bird on the balloon is a tricky one. Some people say it looks like the Poland coat of arms but I think that's a long shot. Any other ideas?

Mr. Running Taxi Guy has an "O" drawn on his back. Your guess is as good as mine!


No puddle at their feet.....

Puddle. She spills her coffee cup by the looks of it. Clumsy twat.

Another website here. Again, real and giving a link to his homepage. Lots of info on it, helpfully put back into forwards speak by a forum I've found:
Features
Sponsers accused of using subliminal messaging in their advertising
New boy on the backwards scene Brown is just 'magic'
Claim that the reverse football website is just a front for getting people to go to the Derren Brown The Event website

Club Manchester United.com
Interested in playing backwards football? Click here to locate your nearest club
steps to mastering "the illusion" technique used by top players to slip the ball past the defence
Backwards merchandise and tickets to the 09/09/09 game are available from our shop

Interviews
Wren Ordbern
(anagram of derren brown) talks to us about misdirection as the key to his goal scoring success. "It's all about making them look the other way" he tells retsehcnamdetinu.com

The date is probably important. There's also a latin motto that I can't fathom. Also from the forum though: From retsehcnamdetinu: "Ian Ducee...after he froze on the pitch" = Ian Ducee is an anagram of audience!!

Blatant lottery clue here. Nuff said.


That's the clip in reverse (or forwards... I really don't know any more), so here it is... reversed again, so it's not reversed anymore (not forwards? *Brain Aneurism*).


Which is fairly self explanatory.

Final things: One car (silver corsa) is driving... backwards... which is actually forward... basically the opposite way to the rest of the traffic, as is a single brunette right at the beginning (/end).

I'm done dictating and screen-shotting now. Enjoy breaking your brains!

-Neop

11 comments:

  1. I think my brain is well and truly broken. Saw the trailer linked from his blog ( http://www.derrenbrownart.com/blog ) and this helps a lot, but I'm still confused as to what he's going to do.

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  2. The balloon thing looks like an eagle. I heard some people are playing the numbers in the lottery... if they do change in each ad, I wonder what the significance of that is? Definitely something to do with lottery though, look at the logo! I wonder why it's all backwards in the first place... lots of text on his blog has been reversed too, these last couple of weeks, so it's definitely significant. Mystery!

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  3. *Random guesses*
    Maybe... he's going to do something like... stick a whole TV audience to their sofas! That'd be WEIRD.
    Predicting lottery results seems a given...... make people talk backwards?!?

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  5. "It's all about making them look away" and from the audio track: "even the simplest tricks can make the most secured systmes vulnerable - if you know where to look"
    My guess is, that it got something to do whit business and money. Stuck to our sofas? Possibly.

    Anyway. You all should check his blog, where there have been lots of weird things going on lately. Hidden competitions and reversed and blank posts ( http://tiny.cc/mDWw2 ). I don't know what, but something _big_ is going on o_o

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  6. Hes hacking our computers!!!!

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  7. I have been going over the advert and messages in the advert from the first time that I saw it, nearly everything about the advert caught my attention.
    The Eagle on the balloon just hit me straight away as the Barclays bank logo which would also make sense in a way that Barclays sponsor the premier league and the site http://www.retsehcnamdetinu.com/
    which is Manchester United with each word backwards, Man U won the cup this year. But now looking at the bird on the balloon its the same that is on the site for http://www.retsehcnamdetinu.com/
    it also has some latin written underneath it
    Hic locus non est versus, and the two liver birds with the shield with a football on it, the liver bird is a common farmyard bird of latin america.
    Also there is another site
    http://www.stucktomysofa.com/
    also on this website it says "gioco di mente" which means Mind Games in Italian. but everything keeps going back to the derren brown site on channel 4, but looking at it again its not the same logo on the balloon as on the site I think I was right about it being barclays because everything has something to do with football and the barclays premiership. and them numbersare either 52 or 32 at the top then 25, 0, 6 and 47, the man has an O or 0 painted on his backand on the top of the bus is a man with a number on his shirt its either a 2 or a 3. and also if you look at the pizza on the stucktomysofa website and look at the cheese it looks like there is a number on that too I think its 53. well there is something going on. :)

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  8. Hic locus non est versus means 'This place not is towards' when translated but that doesn't really make sense. I've tried rearranging the words. here are my suggestions
    this is not towards place
    this place is not towards
    towards this place is not
    not towards this is place
    None of them make much sense which makes me think that the probably go with something? I do think the the logo on the balloon is the same one as on the football website though.

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  9. That sounds like the kind of thing that only works if not translated literally....

    Could really do with someone who speaks latin!

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  10. haha, here we go with my GCSE Latin! 'Hic locus non est versus' actually means 'This place is not real' or 'true' which sort of makes sense because it's seen on a fake site. If anyone remembers in the Harry Potter books, Severus Snape makes a potion called 'Veritaserum' that makes you tell the truth to any question you are asked, with 'Verita' meaning truth. Also there is roots in the word 'verify' I guess.
    :)

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  11. That makes a lot of sense then!
    Anybody see his explanation of the lottery thing? It doesn't really hold water- and he periodically hinted he was lying. Bit disappointed that he didn't REALLY tell us how he did it. Or... you know maybe he dropped it in there under the pretext of just mentioning it in passing??

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